


saying thank you and waving

by another_Hero



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Appendicitis, Coming Out, Hospitalization, Jam Basket Exchange, M/M, Surgery, Whump, discussion of premature birth, morphine administered as part of medical treatment, some discussion of recreational drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 10:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20946776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/another_Hero/pseuds/another_Hero
Summary: David wakes up in pain. It's...not a great experience for anyone.Title is fromThanksby W.S. Merwin, which is a thematically applicable poem I think.





	saying thank you and waving

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you have a lot of fun with this, Anonymous Jammer! most of my fic hangs out really in sort of low-key everyday events, so it was really fun for me to work on a basket with some more high-stakes jams. It is also, turns out, way more weird for me to write high-stakes jams. but also fun! I got a small assortment of your jams in here, though I also altered some (most?) to make them fit with the others. but I hope their jammy spirit remains. 
> 
> Moira ordering apple pancakes is out of character ON PURPOSE. get better body politics @ show.
> 
> there’s accidentally a tiny agent carter reference in here which is actually just a common expression that’s also a line in agent carter and feels like a reference because of the unity of sweaterboys
> 
> leupagus and olive2read both provided really substantial and generous beta services on this, and if it is coherent at all, credit goes to them. the things you don't like are presumably where I ignored them.

Patrick woke up before his alarm to a whimper and a gasp from David in the first morning light. He put his hand up to David’s face and pulled it back wet.

He slid forward immediately—just a little, not enough to crowd him before he knew what was wrong. “Hey,” he said, “hey, what’s going on?

“It kind of feels like I’m being stabbed,” David said, in a high voice that was all air. “That’s not normal, right?”

Under different circumstances, Patrick mighthave said,  _ Depends whether it’s prompted by the thought of breakfast with your family _ —it was the obvious joke. But Patrick only spoke ill of the Roses with Stevie, or maybe with Ronnie in passing, and certainly not when David was so distressed. “That doesn’t sound normal,” he agreed. “Where does it hurt?”

“Here—” David said in a voice that managed to be both whiny and breathless. He didn’t move, but Patrick pulled back the blanket to find he was cupping the spot low on his belly in his hand. “It’s really bad.”

Patrick would have sat up, but he didn’t want to jostle David. “Let me take you to the doctor.”

“Ugh, no, breakfast,” David said in that half voice. “We’ve already rescheduled twice.” Patrick wouldn’t have expected the difficulty involved in arranging a Rose family meal, what with all four of them living in two adjoining rooms, but they really did seem to have what Mrs. Rose called  _ teeming itineraries of social and professional engagements _ .

“Okay,” said Patrick. “Let me know if you want to leave, though. We can go whenever you need.” He looked at his phone. It wasn’t  _ that _ early. Usually he would go for a run around this time, but he didn’t feel right leaving David. He wasn’t sure about getting up, brushing his teeth, making tea, the parts of his daily routine that he could conduct within speaking distance. “Do you want me to stay here with you?”

“Don’t care,” David gasped.

That stung. Patrick absorbed it.

“Are you sure you’re okay for breakfast?” Patrick asked again before they left.

David grimaced. “Picture my mother’s face if I don’t show up.” He’d gotten dressed and made a token attempt at his hair and face and sat back on the edge of the bed, hunched over; his voice was less expressive than Patrick had ever heard it. The future—the place where the future met David—had been working its way into more and more of his thoughts lately, but meeting a version of David he’d never seen before reminded him how far they had to go. He hadn’t even told his parents they were dating, and even after a year of it, he didn’t know what to do with David so flat.

But he knew without even considering it that he wanted to come down on David’s side when he felt small—against the Roses, if need be. He set his hands on David’s shoulders; he wouldn’t have touched David’s hair, even if it had only taken twelve minutes this morning and was much flatter than usual, but David pressed his head into Patrick’s belly. It made Patrick feel valuable and warm and about three times more worried. “I’ll take the heat for you,” he said.

David shook his head. “We’ll go. Maybe I’ll feel better if I eat something.”

“Is the ibuprofen helping at all?” Patrick couldn’t remember how recently he’d asked that last. He was pretty sure it had been more than a minute.

“No,” David said; it sounded like a groan more than a word.

“Do you want to drive there?”

David lifted his head to scowl at Patrick. “It’s three blocks.”

“Okay,” Patrick sighed, and he didn’t point out that David had requested rides home from the store after long work days. “Well, if we’re going, we should go now.”

“They’re gonna be late.”

Patrick had long since developed the habit of adding fifteen minutes to all Rose family times, unless he was only meeting Mr. Rose; it still usually made him the first one to arrive. “But how long is it gonna take you to walk three blocks?”

David whined wordlessly and stood up.

Patrick blocked David into the booth to give him an excuse for not getting up in greeting. He watched David bite his lips between his teeth, clench his jaw. “Let me take you home,” he said again. He tried to stay this side of pleading. It was his day to be the one who managed for them. “You look pale.”

“Excuse you.”

Patrick kissed his temple. “Very pretty,” he said, “but pale. And kind of sweaty?”

“Ew,” said David, “stop talking now, please.”

“Seriously, though, you’ll tell me if you want to go?”

“Stop.”

It was firmer than his earlier complaints; Patrick was taken briefly aback. “Hmm?”

“I want to stay. Stop trying to make me leave.”

It was Patrick’s day to be the one whose stubbornness yielded first. Wasn’t it? “Okay, David.”

“It’s just”—his voice was so thin, and Patrick wasn’t allowed to take him home—“they don’t get to see me as much.”

Patrick wasn’t sure white-knuckling it through breakfast was a necessary response, but he was still charmed by how David’s idea of  _ not as much _ was still several times a week, and some of those times they were sleeping under the same roof. Patrick hadn’t seen  _ his _ parents in a year and a half, and while he wasn’t about to start idealizing the Rose family, their proximity had its upsides. “Okay,” he said again.

“Don’t ‘okay’ me,” David sulked.

“Okay,” Patrick said cheekily, but he didn’t get even a glare for it.

He put a hand tentatively on David’s leg, not sure whether touch would be unwelcome at present. David didn’t react. But the point was moot; the Roses arrived. Patrick stood to greet them. 

“David!” Mrs. Rose said immediately, “why did you come out here looking like a wounded raccoon?” 

Patrick tensed—he knew it was their habit, talking this way, and David could usually give as good as he got, but it still sounded cruel. And it was especially unnecessary in a moment like this; David would hate the comment on his appearance as much as Patrick hated the idea of judging him for being sick.

“Oh, yeah, you don’t look so good, son,” Mr. Rose agreed.

“Thank you,” David gritted out.

“Mm, food poisoning?” said Alexis sympathetically. “Honestly, I thought it would happen to one of us sooner.”

Not one of them came in and asked him what he needed.  _ Neither did you _ , Patrick told himself. David had had to correct him when he pushed his own agenda too hard. But at least his agenda involved  _ trying _ to help David.

“Is it contagious? Should you be out? Mr. Rose, I forgot I had some business to attend to back at the motel. Could you bring me back some apple pancakes?” Patrick’s hands formed claws under the table and dug into his thighs. Mrs. Rose had lifted her purse, but Alexis sat between her and freedom, and she didn’t move to let her out of the booth. 

“I’m not contagious,” David said weakly. “I just have a stomachache. I’ll feel better when I eat something. Um, Twyla, could I just have some—plain toast, please.”

“All right!” she chirped. After Mr. and Mrs. Rose and Alexis had ordered, Patrick asked for pancakes; if David could be tempted at the café, pancakes were what would tempt him.

They all settled into breakfast, though David occupied at least half of Patrick’s attention at any moment. He barely spoke; he ate maybe half a slice of toast before giving up and didn’t ask for anything else or pick at Patrick’s food. He seemed to get grayer as breakfast went on.

But they got to the end, and Patrick was relieved it had only been breakfast. People had places to get to after breakfast. Though now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure whether any of the Roses had fixed schedules just now. Maybe they really were worried about David. He whimpered when he stood.

Patrick caught his arms and murmured, “You want me to go get the car and pick you up?”

David nodded and fell back into the booth seat, facing out. His family was all still there. “I’ll stay,” Alexis said to Patrick.

That was probably for the best. Alexis seemed too concerned to antagonize David on purpose; Mr. Rose would do it on accident; and Mrs. Rose wouldn’t stay at all. Patrick nodded at Alexis and hurried out without finishing the proper goodbyes.

He didn’t run home—Schitt’s Creek was the sort of place where someone would notice and comment if he did—but he walked as fast as he could. Got in the car and momentarily evaluated the shakiness of his hands, the rate of his heart. He probably shouldn’t be driving. But David was sitting at the café and waiting for him, and it was only three blocks.

So Patrick parked in front of it and held one of David’s arms in each of his hands to help him stand up and kept an arm around him and opened his car door and set him in. “Okay,” he mumbled, and closed the door and nodded at Alexis, and David didn’t reach for a seatbelt, and Patrick didn’t make him. When he got into the car, he said, “Let’s go to the hospital.”

“No.”

“David—”

“No! I don’t want to sit in the car all the way there.”

David was supposed to get to be the stubborn one today, but couldn’t he see this wasn’t getting better? “David—”

“I want to lie down,” he managed. “I feel bad. Take me home.”

“David, if this is something serious—”

“No,” he moaned.

Patrick took a deep breath and acknowledged to himself that he could very well regret this. “Fine,” he said. “My apartment or the motel?”

He helped David upstairs, but when they got inside, David said, “The store.”

“Um, you’re not going to the store, David.”

“I know,” David sighed. “You.”

“I’m staying with you,” Patrick said. It was the most obvious thing in the world. David needed a doctor, and Patrick was going to convince him of that within 20 minutes. Well—David had asked him not to push the same point over and over, so it might take an hour.

“No,” David said. “Go th’store.”

When they got into the apartment, David had sat down in the first chair he saw. “Can you even move?” said Patrick. “If you need something?”

“Yeah.” David pressed himself up, and by leaning a hand on various pieces of furniture and walls, he managed to make it to the bathroom. Patrick offered his arm, but David, stubborn, never took it.

You need any help?” Patrick asked when they got in there.

“No,” David said defiantly, pressing one hand to the shower door. But after he was done, he slid down the wall facing the toilet.

Patrick wasn’t sure how much he hated himself for the choice he made then, but David wouldn’t let him do anything. “All right, David,” he said as he uncapped his toothpaste. The cafe's quasi-maple syrup always required a second round of brushing. “I’m gonna go to the store.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll leave the ringer on on my phone. okay?”

“Okay,” David breathed. Patrick took his toothbrush off the charger.

“So if you text me, I’ll get it, and I’ll come back.”

David nodded.

Patrick squeezed toothpaste onto his toothbrush and closed the tube. “And if you text me, and I come back, I’m going to take you to the hospital.”

David pressed his eyes shut.

Patrick squatted down beside him. “Hey. I know you don’t want to ride in the car all that way.” And on those roads. “But I can’t help you, and they can.”

David made a valiant attempt to roll his eyes. Patrick stood back up and brushed his teeth. He got his wallet and keys and phone, with David still in the bathroom, and David didn’t agree to go.

“Hey, David?” he said softly from the bathroom door, stalling for time. It was after nine already. There was no way he could leave him. “You want some pillows in here?”

David wrinkled his nose involuntarily, looked at the bathroom door, and nodded.

“Okay,” Patrick almost-whispered. He brought him two and helped position one against the shower. when David was ready, Patrick let himself rest on the ground a moment beside David’s knees, which were still pulled up tight in front of him. There was no  _ way _ he could leave him like this, intermittently groaning on the bathroom tile. But David had been the one to tell him to go to the store. And Patrick wasn’t sure how long he could handle watching him refuse the only thing that might help. He got David a glass of water, told David that he loved him, locked the door, and went to the store like nothing was happening at all. He was mostly sure he wasn’t going to throw up. He didn’t think about how he was walking away from David. He was walking to the store, which David wanted, and David was the one whose stubbornness got to win when he felt like this. Also, he was pretty sure that leaving David alone might be the only way to change his mind.

The text came before Patrick had even unlocked the register:  _ take me to the hospital _

Fuck anybody watching. Patrick ran.

Maybe he was crying a little by the time he got home. Maybe he bounded up to the locked door wet-faced and breathless and had to collect himself in the time it took him to get out his keys so he could be helpful once he got inside. But he crossed the apartment in all of four steps to find David hunched over the toilet, teary again too. Patrick knelt beside him. “I’m sorry,” he choked. “David, I’m sorry.” He took his hand, though that wouldn’t be enough to help him stand up. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Patrick got his feet under him. “Okay, David.” He didn’t know where was the right place to hold him and just put his hands out between them, palms up. “Do you need help? Can you stand?” His own voice was hoarse and soft, and he wished it would be more neutral, helpful and competent, the kind of boyfriend you could trust with your body.

“I—” David said in that voice. He moved his legs and rolled sideways and groaned, but he got himself to his knees, facing the wall. Patrick stood behind him, hands out and ready, as he put his palms against it and pushed himself up with a wounded noise. Then he turned toward Patrick with clumsy feet and sour breath and grabbed for his hands.

“Hey, did you throw up?” said Patrick, leaving one arm for David to hold onto as he bent down for the glass of water he’d gotten him earlier. The water had spilled onto the floor and was seeping into one of the pillows; Patrick ignored it and refilled the empty glass in the sink. He had to do it facing sideways, with David’s hand on his arm.

“’T really hurts.”

Patrick wanted to pull David against his chest, rub his back, but nothing about this would allow for relaxing. What he needed to do was take David to the emergency room. He lifted the water to David’s lips; David brought a hand up to the glass and obediently sipped.

“Is that enough?”

David nodded, his face pinched and squinting in a permanent wince.

“Okay.” Patrick put the glass down on the sink. “Okay, let’s go downstairs.”

Once he had nested David into the car with the dry pillow, Patrick wasn’t wasting any more time. He pushed himself forward with the anxious certain energy of  _ David needs a doctor _ , not stopping to make room for any greater fear. He drove to Elmdale three miles per hour faster than he usually did; he made gentle swerves into the facing lane more than once to avoid potholes. Usually he didn’t find it unbearably long, that 45 minutes, with David chatting or praising Mariah Carey beside him; they went there at least once most weeks. But the farther they got this morning, the farther Elmdale seemed to be. Patrick drove one-handed, his other lying loosely on David’s forearm, murmuring  _ hey _ or  _ shh _ or  _ almost there _ at any particularly loud expression of distress.

He parked as close to the front door as he could; he still had David’s wallet between his thighs, where he’d set it for convenience and left it, and he took that in one hand and David in the other and got him into the small building and through the empty waiting room and up to the desk.

David’s wallet was like a maze, and he was trying to listen to the triage nurse, but here was an old Rose Video membership card, which could only have been kept on purpose, and here was a picture of David and Alexis as children, carefully preserved, like David was trying to  _ curate _ a  _ wallet experience _ while Patrick was trying to get his medical card to a nurse so he could use the hospital. But then he found it and rested and listened while David explained his symptoms in that empty voice. The nurse was very good-looking, and he wished David was feeling well enough to feign total disinterest in them. As it was, they took David’s blood pressure without incident and assured him someone would call him soon.

Patrick couldn’t sit. He tried, a hand on David’s shoulder, but he had to get up almost immediately. He stood in front of David’s chair, facing him, rubbing his back, David’s head against his shirt. Patrick tilted sideways so his face wasn’t in the buttons. Then he knelt on the institutional vinyl floor, standing up on his knees so David’s head could rest on his shoulder, turning his face to kiss David’s head, getting one hand onto his back and one onto the hair at his nape and just barely scratching. He ought to call David’s parents, Alexis, Stevie; there was no way a year of boyfriendship qualified him to be responsible for David in harsh hospital light. Loving him didn’t mean Patrick could offer a detailed account of his medical history. Not that he was going to let go. Caring for David always made him feel important, even if he couldn’t do much of it just now. His knees started to hurt. He stayed where he was.

Eventually, after at least five minutes of Patrick thinking maybe he would have to get up soon but refusing, someone called out, “David?”

David lifted his head; Patrick slid out from under him and took his hand. They stood up together.

“Yep,” said the—doctor? PA?—when David was done describing his symptoms, “that’s pretty textbook appendicitis.” She’d been able to finish some of his sentences when he looked for a word; she’d pressed on his belly and made him move his knee. “We’re gonna get you started with a morphine drip right away, and then we’ll want to get you into surgery as quickly as possible. What we don’t want is for your appendix to rupture. That can lead to sepsis, and treatment gets a lot more complicated. We don’t have any operating rooms available now, but we’ll get you into the next one, okay?”

“How long will it be?” Patrick asked.

“Just a couple of hours, I hope.”

“A couple of hours?” said Patrick. “What if somebody comes in who can’t wait?”

The doctor pursed her lips, unimpressed. “Sir,” she said, “this isn’t Toronto.”

Patrick didn’t know whether she meant there weren’t many emergencies in Elmdale or just that they didn’t have any reason to keep a lot of operating rooms. He had perfectly good evidence before him of other emergencies—but she was gone, and a nurse was coming in with an IV, and Patrick had to arrange to be standing close to David for moral support without being in her way. David turned out not to mind the needle much, as far as Patrick could tell. He just lay there white and clammy and said yes when he had to and said “Oh good, drugs,” when he didn’t, and Patrick felt the breath go out of his nose in a rush too long to be a laugh. He kept standing there—he’d sat down before, when the doctor was around, because he didn’t want to look confrontational, but he was too keyed-up to sit, and the chair was too far away.

Eventually the glass went out of David’s eyes, and he looked up at Patrick and said, “Hey.” It was a weak voice, but not so dead.

“Better?” Patrick didn’t want to sound too eager, make David feel like he had to act more okay than he was.

“Not all the way. But it’s helping.”

“Good,” said Patrick. He didn’t know the right way to touch him here. He slid a hand up and down the inside of the forearm without the IV. Then, not sure whether his goal was to lighten the mood, he said, “I’m sure glad we didn’t do this before breakfast.”

“Sorry,” said David. “To me. I guess lying in bed and hoping it’ll go away isn’t the best way to cope with  _ everything _ .”

“Most things, though,” Patrick said, and he’d been trying to sound charming and casual and not at all watery like this.

David slid his arm up a little to catch Patrick’s hand.

“Should I text Alexis? Your parents? Stevie?”

David made a face, and that was the best Patrick had felt since last night; he grinned at it, involuntarily. “Yeah, probably.”

“Do you want them to bring you anything?”

“Did you get my phone?”

“No. Do you know where it is?” David had texted him from the bathroom; it must be there.

“Will they be able to get into your place?”

“I’m pretty sure I left it unlocked,” Patrick said sheepishly.

David’s face went sympathetic. He wasn’t supposed to be the sympathetic one right now, Patrick thought. “Sorry I worried you.”

Patrick nodded. “I’m blaming your poor choices for the appendicitis.” He knew David knew he was joking, but he still felt the need to smirk a little, to make sure it was as plain as it could be. With his free hand, he pulled out his phone and texted Stevie:  _ David has appendicitis. If you come to the hospital, will you bring his phone? It’s in the bathroom, probably. Door’s open. _

He sent Alexis, Mr. Rose, and Mrs. Rose identical messages, but he copy-pasted it; the last thing he wanted was a group chat with the three of them.  _ David has appendicitis, at Elmdale General _ . It seemed sufficient. It seemed immensely insufficient, but he didn’t know what else there was to say.  _ Please help me _ ?  _ What do you know about taking care of him _ ? He probably needed their help as badly as David did, or more, but he couldn’t help fearing he’d be disappointed.

“Okay, I’m sick, pay attention to me,” David whined, some flair back in his voice.

Patrick chuckled. “I haven’t paid attention to anything else for at least—” he looked at his phone—“three hours.”

“I’m sure the other drivers felt very safe.”

“Have you ever had surgery before?”

“Um, yes? Of course? You think people come out of the womb with noses like this?”

Oh, right, that was a thing rich people did. “I don’t know, David, I’ve never done anything to mine.”

“Then you take my point.” David was grinning, which was beautiful and perfect and did not negate the fact that there was an organ in his body apparently at risk for just rupturing and sending him into septic shock. “This morphine is very nice.”

“I bet your standards have slipped.”

“Uh, yeah,  _ morphine _ ?”

Patrick checked his phone. “Alexis wants to know how long she has the room to herself, your dad is very concerned, and Stevie is trying to take advantage of your illness to get the day off.”

David frowned. “She’s telling my dad to stay at the motel so she can visit his son in the hospital? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it could work. He definitely used to pay people to visit us before.” But David sounded doubtful.

“No,” said Patrick, reading the newest text, “your dad’s on his way.”

David’s mouth went wide. “Stevie’s gonna leave the motel with Roland?”

“That’s friendship.”

Nothing happened for far too long. They talked, and no one came in to check on them, and David, no longer in pain, wanted to sleep, and no one came in to check on them, and Patrick got a text from Alexis that she and Mr. Rose had arrived didn’t want to leave David alone but had to go to the lobby to let them in, and still no one had come in to check on them. Mr. Rose had brought a word search book and two cinnamon buns from the motel; Patrick accepted the book with fake and the bun with genuine gratitude. He led both the Roses back to David and mentioned he was sleeping; he didn’t really trust them to stay quiet, but he needed to be back before David woke up wanting to see him, or all of them, or someone—whoever David would want. When they got back there, David was still asleep and no hospital staff were there and nothing had happened.

He shrugged at the others and offered Mr. Rose the chair, but Mr. Rose wanted to go examine David. Alexis stood near the door on her phone. No one said anything, and they waited.

When the doctor came back in, they all jumped. She looked at David asleep and frowned. “This isn’t really health information,” she said. “I can just tell you all. We’ve had an emergency surgery come up, so David’s is going to be a little later.”

“So his is, it’s not an emergency,” said Mr. Rose. Patrick wasn’t sure whether he or Mr. Rose was supposed to be the one in charge of this now, coordinating. On the one hand it seemed like it ought to be Mr. Rose, certainly; on the other, he wasn’t really comfortable with them, collectively, being so confrontational with the doctor.

“We want to get David’s appendix out as soon as possible,” the doctor non-answered smoothly. “It should just be a couple more hours.”

“A couple hours?” said Mr. Rose, displeased.

The doctor was unfazed. “We’re a small hospital, sir, but I’m taking David’s condition very seriously.

“Oh, are you, because I haven’t seen you since I got here—”

“Thank you, doctor,” Patrick said. “Is there anything we can do in the meantime?” There wouldn’t be, but Mr. Rose couldn’t talk to her like that, and with everyone else’s worry filling the room on top of his own, Patrick would have complied if she’d told him to do jumping jacks.

“You got him here,” she said kindly. “It’s our job to keep him comfortable until we can get him taken care of.” And then she was gone.

Mr. Rose looked at Patrick like he would have instructions, and Patrick was about to suggest that he go get a cup of coffee when David shifted.

Patrick was at his side immediately, Mr. Rose opposite him. David blinked a couple times blearily. “Hi.”

“How are you feeling, son?” Mr. Rose asked.

“Um, a little boxed-in,” David said, waving a hand at both of them. It hurt to be pushed away; Patrick absorbed it and took a step back. David didn’t say anything to Alexis, who was still leaning against the far wall but had looked up from her phone when he spoke..

“Your mother sends her love, of course,” Mr. Rose told him.

“Mmmmm, yep, that’s exactly what she said.”

“Alexis.”

“Well, what did she say?” David reached for Patrick’s hand—was Patrick allowed to step forward again?

“Nothing,” said Mr. Rose, “just that she hopes you’re well—”

“And that if you’d listened to her, you’d have skipped out on breakfast and come here this morning,” Alexis added. Patrick wasn’t sure this gossip was  _ helpful _ , but he could safely assume she was sharing it out of habit; it wasn’t the kind of thing that would hurt David. Everyone in the room knew Mrs. Rose had given no such advice. Patrick couldn’t believe she wasn’t here now, but that was  _ his _ family; any Brewer in the hospital meant too many aunts and uncles and cousins to fit in the room. “Hey,” Patrick said to change the subject, “they delayed your surgery.”

David made a face.

“Apparently you’re not an emergency.” Patrick said it like a joke, and David took it in stride, scoffing dramatically. “Do you need anything? Some water? Your dad and Alexis brought cinnamon rolls.”

“Um, a cinnamon roll sounds amazing right now, but aren’t you, like, not supposed to eat before surgery?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely not,” Alexis agreed confidently. “The anesthesia can make you nauseous.”

“That’s probably the worst thing that’s happened to me today,” he said to Patrick very seriously. “Water would be nice, though, thank you.”

Patrick wanted to be helpful but didn’t want to let go, and in his momentary hesitation, Alexis said, “I’ll get it.”

David looked up at Patrick. “It’s a good thing you like entertaining, ’cause I just don’t feel up to it.”

“Oh, morphine makes him funny.”

“Do you know how long it was delayed?”

“The doctor didn’t say,” said Mr. Rose. It wasn’t the relief Patrick had hoped it would be, to let him take charge. “You know, she was very brusque—”

“And I’m sure she’s very good at treating appendicitis,” Patrick added to David.

“I know,” said David, squeezing his hand, which was nice but also troubling—David wasn’t supposed to be worrying about  _ him _ . “I’m okay. It’s just, y’know, a hospital. Rather not stay any longer than necessary.”

“Yeah.”

“I brought you your phone,” said Stevie. Their heads all went to the door. “So should I toss it, like, into that lower right quadrant?” She gestured at David’s belly.

“Hey!” said David, “why didn’t you  _ tell _ me I had appendicitis, if you knew that’s what it felt like?”

“See, as I recall, you didn’t tell me  _ where _ it hurt, you were just texting about general agony,” she said pleasantly. “Turns out if you’d texted me about the  _ specific _ agony, I could’ve helped.” 

Alexis slipped in the door then with a literal  _ glass _ of water, somehow, and she held it near David, but not still enough for him to take, then handed it to Patrick, who offered David a sip.

“Anyway,” Stevie said, “are you all hungry? I can go to Julia’s and pick up some lunch.” 

Julia’s was a low-key Chinese restaurant a couple blocks away; Elmdale might have been bigger than Schitt’s Creek, but the food options weren’t limitless. Patrick had been to every restaurant in town multiple times.

He suspected she was looking for a way to be out of the hospital but still helpful. “That would be great,” he said, “thanks, Stevie.”

“I have to go run a few errands,” said Mr. Rose. “So don’t worry about me. Alexis?”

“Sure,” she chirped.

“Sure, you want to come with me, or sure, you want Stevie to get you some food?”

“Um, yeah, whatever!” She tossed her hair. “I’ll stay here.” Mr. Rose stepped out.

Patrick venmo’d Stevie 25 dollars, which was more than his lunch would cost, but he doubted Alexis would think of it. She saw the notification in her phone, nodded thanks, looked back at it, and said, “What do you think I’m ordering, caviar?”

“If that’s what you want,” said Patrick, at the same moment that David said, “Not from Elmdale, please.”

“Okay, well, any special requests?”

Patrick shrugged; wanting any kind of food sounded too taxing. Alexis didn’t react at all.

“Egg rolls,” David said. “When I wake up from my surgery, I want there to be egg rolls.”

“And you want them to have been sitting around the hospital for a few hours first?”

David rolled his eyes, pleased. “Well, I guess if you want to make a separate trip.”

When Alexis made a displeased noise at her phone and then grumbled something about needing to go outside for service, Patrick closed his eyes momentarily, relieved to be left with no company but David’s.

David squeezed his hand. “You’re doing great,” he said.

“Don’t worry about me,” Patrick said, shaking his head and leaning in closer. He kissed David in the empty room, softly, barely. “I’m not doing anything.”

David frowned. “Do you want a list?”

“Are you feeling okay? It’s not hurting again?”

“I’m fine. I mean, you know, all things considered.” He glanced around. “They did not consult a decent designer.”

“I’m guessing they don’t make hospital beds that you’d find aesthetically acceptable.”

“Well, they should,” David declared.

Patrick smiled. “Maybe you can leave a comment card.”

“I will have you know that my motel comment cards are  _ immensely _ reasonable.”

“I’m sure,” Patrick almost whispered, and then Stevie was back.

Patrick stepped away for a box gratefully. He hadn’t thought about being hungry, but he could feel it as lightheadedness, and he needed to be more present than that But once he’d made a selection, he went immediately back to David’s side, and he wondered whether he was acting too much like a guard dog. Would it bother David? David was definitely hungry too. Still, it wasn’t like he could keep the smell away from him in a room this size, and maybe if he moved too far away, David would notice. He checked with Stevie that they were just eating out of the boxes—“What, you think I brought plates?”—and Alexis wasn’t there to say anything if it bothered her. So Patrick stood by David’s bed eating chunks of meat and nothing else out of the kung pao chicken.

But soon he put it down; he was still tense, and he wasn’t sure how he would feel with too much food in his stomach. After a minute, David gestured to the food and said, “Eat more. It would not be a cute look if my boyfriend collapsed in the hospital.” Patrick rolled his eyes but obediently ate some green beans.

Alexis came back and started picking at the food in one of the boxes with her fingers. “Long phone call,” David said knowingly.

“What, David?”

“Who were you talking to?” He even waggled his eyebrows.

“Ugh, I was in  _ class _ , David.”

“Wait, you logged into an online class from the hospital?” Patrick was kind of impressed, actually.

“Yes, and the wifi is  _ not _ good. I’m on a ten-minute break right now.”

“So kind of you to take time out of your busy schedule,” David said dryly.

While Patrick was eating rice, the doctor came in to let them know they’d be prepping David for surgery soon. “Next available operating room is yours,” she said.

_ Unless you have an emergency _ , Patrick wanted to say, standing next to his boyfriend in a hospital bed.

David tugged his hand, and Patrick looked down immediately. “Um,” David said, “you can—you should probably go back to the store.”

Patrick felt his eyes go a little wide. “I should?”

“Yeah, I mean,” David sort of held up his arm with the IV in it, “I’m feeling better, and I shouldn’t have to get stabbed again, and Stevie’s here, and Alexis is sort of here, and my dad texted me that he’s going to be back in ten minutes, and they said it’s really routine, and what are you going to do when they put me out?” David pursed his lips in a suppressed grin. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but you aren’t very good at waiting.”

“I mean—” This was a time when he was supposed to do what David wanted, right? “Are you sure? You don’t want me here?”

David rolled his eyes. “Don’t say it like that. I don’t think you  _ need _ to be here. I have drugs, and family, and I think you can finish out the day at the store. Just—keep your phone on, and Stevie can let you know what’s going on.”

“Are you sure?” Patrick asked again. But they’d been over this this morning, with leaving the cafe; he wasn’t supposed to be questioning what David had already said he wanted. Even if Patrick was right the last time. Probably especially with Stevie right here.

David squeezed his hand. “It’s fine. It’s going to be fine. And I hear being open when you say you will is very important for customer loyalty.”

“Um,” said Patrick, trying to absorb the hurt of it, because he wasn’t questioning what David said he wanted, “okay,” and he kissed David on the mouth, but carefully, like a newly breakable thing, and he kissed David on the temple, and he wanted to kiss him again, or bite him, actually, stay as connected as possible, but he didn’t want to worry him, so he stood up, brushed a thumb over David’s eyebrow, and walked out to the parking lot in a daze, trying to figure out how he’d been convinced to abandon his boyfriend as he went in for surgery.

Outside felt almost painfully expansive after so long in a hospital room. He sat in the driver’s seat, blinking, trying to focus. What did he need to do? He texted Stevie:  _ Text me literally every trivial update. _ He considered, decided that he already had no dignity in her eyes, and sent another text:  _ Or if he asks for me. _

Then he sighed and started the car. His phone buzzed. He was still parked. Stevie had written:  _ You know you can just stay if you want. He’s not going to kick you out. _

He sort of had, though. Patrick put the car in reverse so he couldn’t answer. There were plenty of glib-but-accurate responses:  _ He’s the sick one _ , or,  _ He invoked *customer loyalty* _ , or even the straightforward  _ He’s really right, it doesn’t make sense for me to sit around while the doctors have him. _ But any of those would involve admitting that he did want to stay, and Stevie would probably be able to talk him into it, and David wanted him at the store.

The drive to Schitt’s Creek was long. It had always been this long. He had so many chances to turn back, and the second and the fourth times, he almost did.

But eventually he was at the store, and he tried to imagine he was calmer there. He wasn’t. Even after a year and a bit, he still felt like the whole place was David, was trusted to him, and if that didn’t relax him, at least it made him feel purposeful. But he’d left it half-open when David had called him, the register unlocked, the lip balm askew, the phone pad up on the counter in case he’d needed to write anything down. He shouldn’t have left the place like this. At least it would give him something to do.

The first customer to come in was Bob, who loped over from the café to say, “Hey, Patrick, you know, I was wondering why you’d closed up. I tried to come over before”—Bob had done no such thing; he’d never made any actual purchase here in the history of Rose Apothecary—“but no one was around.”

“Nope,” Patrick agreed, because one thing he absolutely would not be doing was discussing David’s hospitalization with Bob Currie.

“Well, uh, did something happen?”

“Can I help you find anything, Bob?” There was an edge to his customer service voice; he could hear it, he knew better, and he wasn’t sorry at all. “Maybe whatever you were coming in for earlier?”

“Oh, uh, no, that’s okay, Patrick.”

Bob didn’t leave. Patrick kept his eyebrows raised in a way he hoped looked pleasantly curious. It would work on David, if Patrick were with him.

And eventually, Bob must have concluded that there was truly no gossip to be had. He left without a word.

There was a steady stream of customers for a while. David had been right, of course. It was important to be open. And he would only have to stay another hour or so. Maybe he snapped at Mrs. Tellington that  _ all _ the candles smelled good to him and it didn’t  _ matter _ which one she chose, but she’d been standing there asking his advice for fifteen minutes at that point, and she did this every two weeks, and he apologized immediately, and his boyfriend was in the hospital having surgery and had told him not to stay. And maybe he rang up Roland’s jar of organic applesauce the moment he saw him coming outside and called him to the register as soon as he got into the store, but he was pretty sure he’d managed to play off his fervent desire for Roland to leave immediately as good customer service, and also his boyfriend was in the hospital having surgery and had told him not to stay. The afternoon was going as well as could be expected with Patrick so painfully on edge when Mrs. Rose came into the store.

“Oh, Patrick!” she said cheerily. He kept an eye on her hands so he could mark out of inventory whatever she took without paying. David was responsible for enforcing the rules on his family members; without David here, Patrick didn’t have it in him to fight her. “The day is going well, I trust?”

“Uh—” He really didn’t know what to say to her. “I mean, this morning I took my boyfriend to the hospital, and he’s still there, so I wouldn’t say it’s my best.”

“And how is David?” She wore the sort of indulgent expression a person might wear about a misbehaving child they nevertheless found cute.

“Well, he’s in surgery now.” With anyone else, he would have softened this:  _ But it’s routine; people get appendicitis all the time; they’re doing it laparoscopically, so they say it shouldn’t be too invasive _ . He didn’t feel like offering any of that to Mrs. Rose at this moment, not when she was sauntering into his store like she didn’t realize anything was happening at all.

But she seemed genuinely surprised. “Still?”

“Um, it just started.”

“I thought appendicitis was routine. Now you’re telling me they took a whole  _ day _ to prepare David for surgery?” He almost softened toward her at that, but then she said reproachfully, “You should be there with him.”

He knew it was her way, but the presumptuousness rankled almost as much as the fact that she was right. “He wanted me to cover the store.”

“The store.” Mrs. Rose looked around as though surprised to find herself in the place from which she regularly shoplifted. “Well, that’s absurd. David doesn’t know what he wants; he never has.”

Patrick couldn’t handle any more of this. “He’s in  _ surgery _ ,” he said. “You could take a break from badmouthing him while he’s literally  _ unconscious _ .” He shook his head. He wasn’t raising his voice at Mrs. Rose, but he didn’t  _ have _ to sit through this. He cupped his hands together above his forehead. “Just go,” he said. “I can’t—just leave. Don’t take that perfume. It’s way too expensive for us to let you steal it.”

She looked surprised. She was only two feet away from him. He reached out and snatched the perfume from her hand. “Go!” he said again. “David isn’t here for you to insult! I don’t—I don’t know—I can’t help you today.”

“No,” she said, looking almost confused—though not contrite. “No, it appears you can’t.” She left the store.

He knew he ought to apologize, but he seethed while he organized everything that could possibly be organized. He replenished the sold stock; he faced all the labels forward again. He was shifting the position of a bottle of body milk by a degree or two for the third time, composing retorts to Mrs. Rose and listening for his phone, stepping back behind the counter every few minutes to make sure it hadn’t gone off without him noticing. But he heard it right away when it rang.

His heart started racing immediately, and he leapt for the shelf under the counter where he’d set it to be at hand but not visible to the customers, and he looked at the screen expecting Stevie or even David, but it was his mom calling.

He thought he shouldn’t answer. It was store hours, for one thing; they were still open. But also—there was no way he’d be able to keep from talking about David, and he would give himself away, and that was going to go fine, but it  _ could _ go badly. Wouldn’t it be better if she learned about David—about him—at a more neutral time? How would he even say it? But his parents were good parents, and God help him, he may have been 32 years old, but if he couldn’t have his boyfriend, he wanted his mom.

“Hi,” he said, trying to sound pleased to hear from her.

“Oh, hi, sweetie. We thought you’d be at work and we’d have to leave a message. But it’s good to hear your voice.”

“Yours too.”

“What about mine?” his dad asked.

“Oh, yeah,” his mom said, “we’re on speaker.”

Patrick chuckled, listening to see whether it sounded like a normal laugh. “Yours too.”

“You have time to talk?”

“Um, yeah, there’s—there’s no customers right now.”

“Oh,” his dad said, “well, I guess that’s not good news, but it’s good for us.”

“Yeah,” he said again. He should ask why they’d been calling. They’d been planning to leave a voicemail—

“Patrick? Is everything okay?”

“Um—” He already felt like his throat was full of liquid. He cleared it.

“Sweetie? What’s wrong?”

What was the point of answering the phone if he wasn’t going to tell her? “Uh, David’s in the hospital, and—I mean, he has appendicitis, it’s not—I don’t know—but he made me come back to the store.”

“Well,” his dad said reasonably, “that makes sense, doesn’t it? If he can’t work?”

“Kind of, I just—I feel like I should be with him, you know?”

“Oh, no,” his mom said, “I’m sure he’s okay. People get appendicitis all the time. And doesn’t his family live in town?”

“Um,” Patrick winced, “yeah, yeah, they do. His dad and sister were there when I left. And his best friend.”

“That’s good,” his dad said. “And covering the store really is helping him, you know? It’s the right thing for his business partner to do.”

Patrick tensed again. He could agree, and get out of this, and only feel a little bit worse. His jaw clenched; every muscle in him was ready to flee. “Um,” he said, “yeah,” he said, “but—David’s—also—my boyfriend.”

There was a pause, a minute for that to land.

“Oh, sweetie,” his mom said, and she sounded—sad? which wasn’t at all what he’d wanted from a coming out, he should have done it sometime when he wasn’t already so close to falling apart, would she still talk to him, would his dad—“go back to the hospital.”

“I—what?”

“Go,” his dad agreed. “You have, what, less than an hour that the store’s still open? Just close. It’ll be fine.”

“But—David—” Worry had been propping him up all day, and the relief was melting him, and he was losing his grip on rational speech. “He wanted me to—”

“Did he know you were this worried?” his mom asked.

“No!” Patrick said indignantly, “no, I wouldn’t—” He wanted to say  _ shut up _ , but she was his mom.

“Look,” his dad said, “I get that you need to take care of David, but it doesn’t sound like he’s in the position to take care of you right now. So let us be parents for a minute, okay? Close the store. Go to the hospital. I mean, a hospital’s a shitty place to worry, but at least you’ll be close by.”

Patrick nodded, not that they could see. His breath came in loud like a gasp, or a sob. “Uh-huh,” he managed to say, but all his breaths now were loud and wheezy, and he didn’t manage  _ bye _ before he hung up. His face was covered in tears, and they were still coming, and he couldn’t help it. He leaned on the wall and slid to the floor and waited it out because there was nobody to hold him because David was in the hospital and thought Patrick didn’t want to be there with him.

The bell rang. “We’re closed,” he called, his voice thick and throaty, and he prayed they would leave. There was still more to say to his parents—mostly the fun stuff, the  _ who kissed who first _ s and the  _ is he good to you _ s, but also a little bit of  _ how long have you been together _ and  _ is this why you haven’t been coming home _ . Realistically, they’d probably never ask; his family wasn’t the type to share everything, and they wouldn’t want to demand more than he was willing to offer. He’d just worry he ought to tell them until it was harder to say nothing than something.

The thought made him anxious enough that he managed to stand up.

Mrs. Rose was there, leaning against the door. “Hello, Patrick,” she said. “I was wondering whether I might trouble you for a ride to the Elmdale medical center.”

She must have been standing there since the bell. If she offered anyone else half the chances she expected for herself— “I’m leaving in two minutes,” he said, and he went to rinse his face in the bathroom.

His phone chimed three times while he was in there. One was his mom:  _ Let us know when he’s all right. _ One was his dad:  _ Maybe have someone else drive you. _ It was sweet of him, but Patrick imagined handing his keys to Mrs. Rose—fat chance. He was all right now anyway, at least in relative terms. The third text was from Stevie:  _ surgery’s over. went fine. he’s still asleep. _

He texted his mom the update. To Stevie he wrote:  _ I’m on my way. _

He ought to apologize to Mrs. Rose. He hadn’t spent much time with her, and he sort of imagined she might view apologizing as a sign of weakness, but he was pretty sure that if you kicked your boyfriend’s mom out of your store and told her off for shoplifting, you were the one who was supposed to apologize, no matter the context. But he didn’t have it in him. He didn’t have much in him, to be honest. David was fine, or at least, probably fine. His parents had offered more than he’d hoped for. Everything important was almost certainly okay. So he stayed quiet, and eventually Mrs. Rose spoke.

“Did you know David was a premature baby?” She didn’t say  _ baby _ , exactly; she said it like French, but her point was clear.

“I didn’t,” he said honestly.

“Mm. He was born just short of seven months.”

Patrick was sufficiently aware of childbirth to know, if only intellectually, that that must have been terrifying.

“In many ways it was ideal,” Mrs. Rose continued. Patrick gripped the wheel tighter. “For me, for my career. I missed a lot of unpleasantness. But—have you ever seen an infant that young?”

Patrick shook his head honestly.

“They look like they shouldn’t be able to live.”

For a while, Patrick thought that was all she was going to say.

“It’s a horrible thing to put on a person,” she said eventually. “The responsibility for a child that small.”

Patrick nodded.

“I do love them,” she added. “I know people wonder.”

He shook his head. In terms that stark, he’d never doubted her. He’d doubted her in plenty of other ways.

“But I never knew how,” she continued, as though Patrick did, and everyone else, as though other people had been offered secret lessons on love behind her back. “Now—now they can’t need me. Because there’s nothing I can do for them.”

Patrick wasn’t deputizing himself to be Mrs. Rose’s therapist, or her parenting coach, or anything else. He didn’t have it in him to explain people who weren’t Mrs. Rose to Mrs. Rose. “I think he’ll be glad to see you,” he said, though he wasn’t sure.

David wasn’t awake by the time Patrick and Mrs. Rose got to the hospital, which everyone assured him was just because of the drugs. Mr. Rose stood up to greet them and gave them an official-sounding status report; Patrick hardly paid him any attention, once he’d heard  _ went very well _ . He wasn’t yet bored with watching David for signs of life. For a moment he tried to imagine him infinitely small, thin-skinned and breakable, but it wasn’t as difficult as it ought to be, and he didn’t like it.

His phone buzzed with a text from his mom:  _ Can we send him flowers? Is that okay? _

Patrick didn’t even try to contain his grin.  _ Very okay! _ he wrote.  _ David loves flowers. _ He nudged Stevie.

“What’s up with you?” she asked, eyeing his smile suspiciously.

“Nothing. What’s the address of the motel?”

“I’ll only tell you if you tell me why.”

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll look it up online.” But he couldn’t help it: “My parents want to send David flowers.”

“Oh, that’s very nice,” Mr. Rose said warmly, and Alexis said, “Aw, that’s so sweet!” which she punctuated with two pinched-together fingers. 

But Stevie’s jaw dropped low, and she pointed to his phone, and she said, “Oh, so you—”

“It just kinda—”  _ came out _ , he didn’t say, but he chuckled.

Stevie pursed her lips and her eyes twinkled. He figured she could fill in the blank the same way he had, but wasn’t with the Roses right there. From Stevie, this was merciful behavior.

So Patrick already felt light and giddy when David’s head rolled over and he said, “You’re having fun without me.”

Patrick was at his side in a second. “Not anymore.” He kissed where his hair turned to sideburns. “How are you feeling?”

“No excruciating pain, but I guess it could be the drugs.”

“I’m pretty sure the doctors don’t lie about taking out internal organs,” Patrick said comfortingly, “even the extraneous ones.”

“Ew,” David said groggily, “don’t talk about organs. How’s the store?”

“Good,” Patrick said. “I didn’t tell Bob you were in the hospital.”

“I love you.” David still sounded half-asleep, but it didn’t matter.

And Patrick would have replied, with all the enthusiasm David merited, but Mr. Rose was at the bed by now, and Mrs. Rose, and Stevie, and Alexis, who said, “David, did you ask if you could keep your appendix?”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, I mean, they took it out of  _ you _ . I have mine,” she added with a breezy shrug.

“Um, do you keep it in the room where we  _ sleep _ ?” But Alexis was back on her phone, oblivious or pretending to be.

“How are you feeling, son?” Mr. Rose asked.

“Um,” said David, “tired.”

“Well, that’s reasonable, that’s not surprising,” Mr. Rose said in a measured voice.

“Yeah, they just took a whole organ out of my body,” said David.

“Hey!” said Patrick.

“ _ I _ can talk about it,” David said. “I’m the one it happened to.” But his hand found Patrick’s next to him and squeezed for a long moment. “I’m hungry.”

Stevie made a dramatic show of a sigh. “I’ll go get some egg rolls,” she said.

“Byeeee,” said David. Then, “I want to sleep again. Wake me up for the food?”

“You sleep as much as you need,” said Mrs. Rose. It was probably her attempt at kindness; she’d been so quiet up to now, and Patrick had been bracing himself. “You’ve earned that IV.”

“We’ll wake you up,” Patrick added, and gestured for Mrs. Rose to sit on the bench this room had by the window.

“I didn’t know you were free, honey,” Mr. Rose said. “I’d have come to get you.”

“Oh, no matter,” said Mrs. Rose, her charm turned on again. “I could hardly pass up the opportunity to confabulate with Patrick.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Rose, looking at Patrick a little sideways, “very nice.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I have concluded that David is in eminently capable hands.”

Patrick had barely said a thing. It wasn’t important. Everything else today had mattered so much, too much, and Mrs. Rose’s approval? He smiled politely and let it go.

The Roses left when David was finished eating, and Stevie left when he was ready to sleep again, but Patrick categorically refused to go home for the night. David didn’t take a lot of persuading. He gave a halfhearted “Are you sure?” but he beamed when Patrick said he was.

There wasn’t any proper place to sleep, just the long seat in the window, which Patrick could lie on with his knees in the air. He hadn’t brought any other clothes, hadn’t really spared a lot of time for practical planning either of the times he left town today, so he was wearing the soft drawstring pants David had worn to the hospital. It wasn’t exactly romantic, but it was a relief. To be pragmatic about their things, to be in a room with no one but David, except when they were checked on by the nurses.

“I yelled at your mom,” Patrick said, turning his head to face David in the semi-dark. “I kicked her out of the store.”

David’s eyes went wide with delight. Then: “Do I want to know what she said?”

“Oh, nothing, she just—”

“Just what?” David prodded.

“She’s not always very nice to you?”

David frowned. “Are you saying I  _ don’t _ want to know what she said?”

He wasn’t ready to admit that he’d snapped when she chastised him for leaving David alone, so: “She just didn’t seem to think any of this was a big deal.”

“She’s not very good at worrying,” David said. Even in the low light, he wasn’t looking at Patrick. “She kind of—prided herself on not being able to do anything. Before. Because she didn’t have to?”

“Okay.”

“So she has to just. Pretend that nothing is worth worrying about.”

Patrick shook his head. “You’re so worth worrying about.”

David looked back at him. “That’s not a sweet thing to say.” But Patrick could see the effort not to smile twisting his face.

“Okay, David.” He seemed so far away; Patrick could have gotten up and kissed him in two steps, but it felt like they ought to be texting, at this distance. 

“I probably won’t remember that you said it,” David added. “I’m very tired, and I’m still on drugs.”

“Guess I’ll just have to say it again later,” Patrick said, to see whether he would make that face again. He knew David was trying for pained, but he didn’t come anywhere close.

Later, after Patrick had spent most of the night awake listening to David breathe, after he had asked whether David wanted to go to the motel and barely tried to hide his pleasure when David proclaimed a preference for his apartment, after he’d tucked David into bed with a book and _still_ been unwilling to leave him and so dispatched Stevie to the store to put a sign on the door that said _Open tomorrow!_, after he’d set some white beans to soak and climbed into bed next to David, he finally told him: “My parents said they were going to send you flowers.”

“That’s nice,” David said. “I like your parents.”

Patrick hadn’t expected that. He tried not to sound worried. It was good, now. They ought to like each other. So he just said, “Hmm?”

“I mean, I haven’t talked to them a lot. But when they call the store. They’re nice.”

“Um, yeah,” Patrick agreed, “they are.” He’d noticed when it happened, worried when it happened, David talking to his parents. But maybe it was good they knew each other a little.

“So where are the flowers?”

“I—gave them the address of the motel.”

David started to press himself out of bed before Patrick put a hand on his chest. “What are you doing? Alexis has my flowers!”

“Want me to call Stevie and see if they’ve shown up?”

David considered. “I’ll text her. I don’t think you’re intimidating enough.”

Patrick grinned. He refused to hear it as an insult. He folded himself into David, not on the stitched side. He should tell him. “I should tell you something.”

“What kind of something?” David didn’t seem worried, especially.

“I only just—told my parents about you. About us. They’re thrilled,” he added, though he could see it for a misdirect even as he said it.

“Okay,” said David. “Are you glad you did?”

“Yeah,” said Patrick, but also—“You’re not mad?”

“Mad?” David sounded so warm, so caring, and it wasn’t fair to make him do this, less than a day out of the hospital, but Patrick wanted to press his whole face into it. He had—missed him, he’d missed David knowing what he was thinking about. “No, no, that’s something very personal, and it’s something you should only do on your terms.” He paused. “I mean, I definitely thought they knew.” 

Patrick ducked his head. “They called while I was at the store,” he said. “I didn’t—I didn’t, like, set out to tell them.” There was a way you were supposed to go about major announcements. You weren’t supposed to wait until a crisis and let them spill out over the phone almost by accident.

“So? You still did. I’m proud of you for telling them. It’s just, you know you can share things like that with me, right?”

Patrick did technically know that. “Yeah, I just—I felt like I already should have. Which I know is not a thing. But I still feel like that. Like I shouldn’t have done it just because I was sad, you know?” He shouldn’t have said that; he powered forward, hoping to draw attention away. “Shouldn’t I have told them sometime good, like, on purpose?”

“Nice try,” said David, and he literally brought his hand up to pat Patrick’s head. “You were sad?”

“No,” said Patrick. “I’m fine.”

“You can’t lie to me,” said David. “I’m sick.”

Patrick kept his face securely hidden in the sweater, but he made sure there was room for the words to get out; otherwise he’d have to say it twice. “I just—you sent me away, to the store. I wished you had wanted me to stay with you, that’s all.”

There was a gap in time, so long that Patrick looked up to see David’s mouth opening and closing silently. Then, “Of course I did,” he said.

“David, you literally told me to leave. Like  _ twelve times _ . I kept saying, are you sure? and you kept being like, oh, yeah, just go.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think there was a  _ reason _ for you to be there. But I still  _ wanted _ you to be there.”

“That’s a reason.”

David made a face.

“It’s a reason for me,” Patrick said seriously.

“But,” David said, “you did stuff at the store.”

“Yeah, we had some customers. They weren’t more important than  _ you _ .”

“Okay, um,” said David, “sorry? I feel like I’m sorry. But I don’t—I’m not sure why?”

“Don’t be,” Patrick said, nudging David’s shoulder with his forehead, whole-body glad to be up against him again. “I wanted to stay. I should have stayed.”

“That’s a reason,” David agreed. “I should have thought about how you would feel.”

Patrick shook his head into David’s shoulder and then moved up to kiss his jaw. “I thought it was what you wanted,” he said. “If it was helpful for you, you know, if you were worried about the store—I’d feel good about that.”

“Bullshit,” David said immediately.

Patrick let out a quick laugh. “Okay,” he said. “Fine. I wanted you to want me there. But you were the one in the hospital, David, you didn’t have to worry about my feelings. And I didn’t want to push you to do something you didn’t want just so I would feel better.”

“Okay, well,” David said. “I’m not in the hospital anymore, so. You could have stayed, you know? You can’t just, like—refuse to care about the things you need at all.” His lips twitched. “That’s how you end up with a sad coming out over the phone.”

He was right, but that was Patrick’s problem, and he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He tried to anyway. “I know, but—I pushed you too much this morning, and you were upset, and I didn’t want to do that again.”

“You what?”

“At breakfast. I kept trying to get you to leave—”

“It’s all kind of a blur, honestly,” David said. “But it  _ sounds _ like I  _ told _ you what I  _ needed _ .”

That got a real laugh out of Patrick. “You did. Okay. You did.”

“And you weren’t even on drugs!”

“Fine,” said Patrick, still grinning, “next time, I want to stay with you.”

“Um, I’m offended that you would even  _ imply _ that I was born with more than one appendix.” David shuddered. “Do I get to talk to your parents soon?”

Patrick accepted the redirect gratefully. “You want to?” He’d sort of expected David would be horrified by the idea of meeting the parents. He deserved more credit.

“Mm, yeah,” David said, “you have such a head start. It could take me years to know your mom well enough to kick her out of the store.”

The mention of years didn’t even register at first; then it filled Patrick with warmth. “That’s not embarrassing anymore,” he said. “She ended up talking to me about her feelings.”

David gave a fake shudder. He wasn’t very good at acting mean, Patrick thought.

“And then  _ you _ talked to me about  _ your _ feelings.”

“Well, now I  _ really _ want to chat with your parents.” He picked up his phone. “Speaking of which, Stevie—ooh, she has them. She’s bringing them over. We should probably put on pants.”

“Yeah,” Patrick said. He didn’t get up. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the Rosebudd for brainstorming some things and esp to @EmuFume for answering all my questions about Canadian ERs. If I have any remaining misrepresentation of Canadian ERs, please know that this is a perfectly accurate representation of the Elmdale ER, which, like most of this show, exists outside of time and space.
> 
> As I understand it, the most obvious sign of appendicitis is [sudden pain in the right lower abdomen (might start near the navel)](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/appendicitis/symptoms-causes/syc-20369543). There are other symptoms, obviously, but [I am not a doctor hat] if you’re having intense pain there, you should go to a _hospital_ because appendicitis will _not_ clear up on its own and _will_ eventually cause sepsis (when your inflamed appendix ruptures) and make you go into septic shock (when you don’t treat the sepsis) and _die._


End file.
